


All Thanks to a Bottle of Fireball

by halocline_nymph



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Casual Sex, Clothed Sex, Dorms, Drunk Sex, F/M, Floor Sex, Light Dom/sub, Music, Oral Sex, Sneaking Around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-09-05 19:10:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20278360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halocline_nymph/pseuds/halocline_nymph
Summary: College dorm AU. Katara stays in for the night, mulling over a recent breakup. Her downstairs neighbor Zuko shows up to complain about her singing. Smut ensues.





	1. Chapter 1

Katara stared at her phone with a mixture of annoyance and affection. She had a text from Aang. Just “How are you?” hanging in a cheery blue bubble. She sighed and picked up the phone, put it down, sighed again, picked it up, and typed,  
“Pretty good! Ended up doing okay on that chem test after all! You?”  
Not twenty seconds passed before his response appeared.  
“That’s great! I know you worked hard for it :)”  
Jesus Christ with the smiley faces. Aang had always been a positive guy, but ever since they broke up, she couldn’t get through three lines of text without him throwing in a smiley face to let her know that he was totally fine! Totally! Fine!  
A few more seconds elapsed before a second text appeared. He was not one to shy away from double texting.  
“I’m all right… going to a party later with some guys from ultimate frisbee! Should be fun”  
She couldn’t help but smile at the thought of Aang at a party, making people laugh. He would probably get everyone to play some ridiculous drinking game that involved charades. She felt a tiny bit guilty for not trying to find a place to go out that night, but the week after ending it with her boyfriend from senior year, she didn’t really feel ready.  
She texted back, “Awesome! Have fun”  
And felt pretty relieved for the conversation to have reached a natural conclusion without incident. They had both assured each other many times that they wanted to stay friends, and for the last week and a half, Aang had texted her precisely every three days and they had exchanged the pleasantest of small talk. She knew they would be comfortable around each other someday, but for now it was work.  
They both knew that breaking up was the right thing to do. It wasn’t like she had met anyone she was especially interested in, but she could tell that being in a long-distance relationship was making her antisocial. It made it so easy for her to indulge her homebody tendencies and hide in her room while most of the other people in her dorm were out at frat parties on the weekend. And she was the one to bring it up, but she could tell Aang felt more or less the same way. For the opposite reasons—he was such an extrovert, and he was always torn between wanting to stay in and talk to her, and wanting to go hang out with the new friends he was meeting. But no matter how you cut it, it didn’t feel super great.  
She almost jumped when a voice startled her from the doorway.  
“I guess I’ll see you Sunday night then.”  
She spun around in her desk chair to see her roommate, Mai, coat on, carrying a duffel bag.  
“Oh! You’re leaving for the weekend?”  
“Yeah, I told you last week, I’m going home this weekend,” Mai said in her usual curt, slightly irritated tone.  
“Oh, uh, okay! Have fun at home then!” Katara said, trying not to sound too excited. A weekend without Mai meant her space to herself. Watching TV as late as she wanted with no one to complain that the light from her screen was keeping them awake. Taking a long shower without anyone complaining that she was using up all the hot water. And best of all, she could play all the music she wanted.  
As soon as Mai closed the door, Katara pulled her guitar out from under the bed. The first week of the school year, Mai had made it pretty clear with annoyed looks that playing guitar during study hours or sleep hours was not going to fly, and those were the only kinds of hours you got living with Mai. So she would always play whenever she was at home but Mai was in class, which normally only happened on Tuesdays and Thursdays from ten-thirty until eleven in the morning.  
She was eager to practice now because she had just written her first song. Such a thing had never seemed possible to her before, even though she had been playing guitar since middle school. But it felt like something changed when she and Aang broke up. Just this new feeling, like there was no one around for her to look to and ask if she was right or wrong. Like suddenly, the person who knew if the song sounded good or not was her. It didn’t hurt that she was also super moody from the breakup. The words that came out weren’t entirely sad, but they definitely weren’t happy. It was a song about doubt, and feeling lost, but hopeful. She played it with satisfaction and confidence, still a little shocked that she had actually written a song, a real song. In her joy over Mai leaving for the weekend, she let herself sing a little louder than she normally would in the dorm. 

One floor below, Zuko was also alone. His roommate was out for the night, it being Friday and all, and normally he would have gone with him, but he was in a foul mood, and the truth was he hated parties. His dad was still trying to convince him to change his major, and he had gotten testy with him about it when they talked earlier that day. He knew he would regret it, and he just wanted some time to sulk about it. But he was tired of distracting himself with tv shows, and he couldn’t focus well enough to read. So he just lay on the bed, staring at his roommate’s psychedelic poster and wishing he could pass out and be done with this worthless Friday night already.  
Upstairs, that girl started singing again. It was that same song, the one he hadn’t been able to get out of his head all week. Her voice was too muffled to hear the words, but he liked the sound of it, sad but soothing. There was one part where she always slowed down and got quieter, as if she was still trying to learn that part, and he couldn’t quite hear it. It didn’t sound like any song by any band he knew of. He had a feeling that he wasn’t going to find it on the internet, either. Truth to tell, it had been driving him a little crazy to have just part of the song stuck in his head, looping over and over, never resolved. He closed his eyes. He couldn’t even decide if he liked it, hearing her sing the same song over and over again in that halting way, if it was calming him down or keeping him from sleeping. He wondered who it was, if it was a girl he had seen around the building. His mind wandered to the elevator, the laundry room, trying to match that airy voice to a face somehow.  
After she had sung it a good twenty times, he finally stood up, frustrated. He wasn’t sure if he was frustrated with himself or her, but he was sick of lying on his bed. He walked upstairs, went slowly down the hall, following the sound to the right door. He paused for a second, but then someone came out of the elevator and he was embarrassed to be standing there awkwardly, so he knocked on the door. The singing stopped immediately.  
A girl opened the door, blushing a little, looking super guilty. “I’m so sorry! Was I bothering you? I didn’t mean to play so late, but my roommate’s out of town and I kind of lost track of time…” Yep, he had seen this girl. She was always sitting in the easy chair in the ground floor lounge, talking quietly on the phone and looking distracted. The look was easy to spot: someone in a long-distance relationship. Still, there was something about her that made him always notice her when he saw her in the elevator or the dining hall. The way her hair was just a little too curly to ever look neat. The dark blue of her eyes. Now that he saw her, he realized that the voice totally matched the face. She looked so anxious and embarrassed that he felt the immediate urge to backtrack, feeling like a jerk for having wanted to ask her to be quiet. After all, she was clearly just trying to pass a solitary Friday night too. So he stammered,  
“Oh, no, you weren’t bothering me! Don’t worry! I just, well,” he faltered, then blurted out the only thing he could think of that made any sense, praying that it didn’t sound creepy, “I just wondered, um, that song you’ve been singing. I was wondering if I could. Um. Hear you sing it.” Her eyes widened for a second, and he cursed in his mind, adding hurriedly, “Sorry! That was weird. I just. It’s. It’s a good song, and it’s been, uh. It’s been stuck in my head. But like, I don’t know the whole thing? And I don’t know the words to look it up, you know that feeling?” He felt increasingly helpless as he talked, but suddenly she was smiling broadly, even gleefully. The warmth of it changed her whole face.  
“Really? You like it? Fuck yeah, you can hear it!” She ran back to her chair and picked up the guitar, sat down, facing him. She looked ridiculously excited, then suddenly shy. “It’s actually. Uhhhhhh. The first song I’ve ever written. Like, I can’t believe someone got it stuck in their head! That’s so weird!”  
Zuko’s body was still practically humming with anxiety from asking her in the first place, so he didn’t really notice her hands shaking a tiny bit as she started to play. When she began to sing, he finally calmed down enough to listen. The song was really good. It was simple, but the feeling it conveyed was vivid: that same strange blend of homesickness and restlessness that he felt so much of the time since moving here.  
She finished the song, slowing down in all the same places he was used to by now. Her voice was kind of thin on the last line, and then she stopped, looked down for a second, and before he could say anything, she mumbled, “so, yeah, I didn’t really realized how much stage fright I would get playing that for someone for the first time, sorry, it’s still, I’m still kind of working out some rough bits,” and he finally had to cut her off to get a word in edgewise.  
“I thought it was really good!” She finally stopped talking and met his eye, looking thoroughly embarrassed. Even more embarrassed than he felt, so he forged ahead. “You really haven’t played it for anyone before?”  
She blushed again. Shit! Why couldn’t he think of anything to say that didn’t make her more uncomfortable?  
“Nope,” she said softly, looking away again. They were both quiet for a few seconds. Think. Think!  
“Uh, what’s it about?” Her eyes widened. Shit! That was even more personal. What was he doing? He should just leave. But to his surprise and bewilderment, her face lit up again, and she started explaining it. She was clearly quite proud of it. Fuck, this girl was cute. And she didn’t even hesitate to tell him all about it. How she had just broken up with someone. And she had really mixed feelings about it. The first verse was about this, the chorus was about that. The line about the blackberry was about their first date. The line about the game of checkers was about the last time they had seen each other. The line about learning to ballroom dance was about the day she decided they needed to break up.  
Partway into her explanation, she nonchalantly opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle of cinnamon whisky.  
“Hey, you want some of this? While we talk? I bought it to take to a party I didn’t end up going to last month. Haven’t really… had an occasion to open it.” Who the fuck was this girl? He smiled, knowing the feeling of wanting a drink but not wanting to drink it alone. He said sure. She opened it, then laughed and admitted that she didn’t have any cups. He reassured her that it didn’t matter. She had gone way out on a limb by offering him booze, the least he could do was not act like he thought she had cooties. She giggled and offered him the first sip. He tried to take a long pull, but he didn’t anticipate how spicy the cinnamon flavor was and ended up coughing. She teased him and pulled the bottle away, claiming that she could do way better, which she did. She handed him the bottle again, and he took a smaller sip this time, realizing with a jolt that her lips had just touched the same bottle. He could see a tiny bit of her red lipstick on the rim. The bottle was cool and smooth on his lips, and he savored it.  
As he handed it back to her, she fell silent, blue eyes fixed on the bottle. He wondered what she was thinking. She looked sad. Emboldened by the whiskey, he broke the silence.  
“My favorite part of your song,” he said softly, “is the line about falling asleep every night wondering if you will feel at home when you wake up. Sorry, I kind of butchered it, I forget the exact words. But it’s uh, I’ve been feeling that way a lot since coming here.” She sighed, nodded.  
“I think that’s basically why I had to end it. With my guy from back home. I need to figure out how to feel at home here. And when home is a person, and the person is somewhere else, that’s just never going to happen.” She took another swig and handed the bottle back to him. “But I guess now it can.” Her eyes flickered to his, then she got up to fill her water bottle in the hallway. He swallowed, wondering if he should leave, or offer to, or, or if, or, his mind pretty much stuttered to a halt at the audacity of where that thought was headed.

Katara didn’t entirely remember deciding that she was going to move over and sit by him on the bed. But when she came back with the water, she just sort of did. He was sitting sideways on the her twin bed with his back to the wall, and she sat next to him, a foot and a half away, and offered him the water. He thanked her. Even in this strange, reckless mood, she wasn’t about to let herself get dehydrated and do something embarrassing like get sick. They kept talking for a while. He told her about his dad, always trying to push him into accounting so he could take over his business, when he wanted to study English, and how that was what he enjoyed, but he also wondered if his dad was right and he was making a terrible decision. She told him about her picky, moody roommate and how she never felt like she could be herself in her room. They opened the whisky again and started passing it back and forth. His cheeks were getting flushed, she noticed. It was super endearing. His voice was louder too, and the scowl he had worn when she first opened the door was gone.  
She kept scooting closer to him, closing the gap between them a tiny bit every time she turned to look at him when he talked or took the whiskey back from him. She was thanking her lucky spirits that she had stayed home from that house party and held onto this liquid courage. She felt light, warm, relaxed.  
When her knee finally touched his, they both stopped talking, and he gave her a long look. He had an expression of disbelief and questioning, she thought, as if he was trying to read her and make sure it wasn’t an accident that she was right next to him, on her bed, touching his knee. This guy. She couldn’t believe how uncertain this guy seemed, how anxious, how surprised that he was still here. Dude was hot, straight black hair shagging beautifully over his sharp features, those startling light-brown eyes. But he was acting like he had no idea. Maybe he had been some kind of outcast in high school. She held his eyes, wondering if she was going to have to be even more obvious. Was the knee thing not enough to count as making the first move?  
Suddenly he turned fully toward her, grabbed her shoulder, leaned in. The kiss was intense. His lips felt hot against hers, his grip on her shoulder was firm, and he tasted like cinnamon. She gasped at the feeling of it, and he pulled away immediately, looking guilty. “I’m sorry!” he said loudly, then winced at how loud it had come out. “I didn’t. We don’t. I was. Sorry.” He was already scooting away from her on the bed. She grabbed his hand to stop him, and only then did he stop and look her in the face, slowly seeming to realize that she was smiling, not upset. It was all she could do not to giggle at the catastrophically wrong signal she had accidentally sent and his panicked response to it. Instead, she held onto his hand and turned to face towards him, sitting cross-legged. She leaned toward him conspiratorially and asked, stumbling a tiny bit in her medium-tipsy state,  
“Did you really come up here to ask me about my song? Or did you just… did you know I would let you in if you said that?” He looked at her seriously, smoothed a stray curl out of her eyes.  
“No, that’s really why I came. I didn’t know who was singing until you opened the door.” For whatever reason, this was the tipping point for her, and she kissed him with abandon, moving onto her knees and straddling him. Her hands were on his shoulders and she relished the feeling of pressing his back to the wall as she explored his mouth. She could feel his body responding to the sudden contact. He pushed her back one last time and she grumbled in response.  
“Look, Katara, are you sure this is what you want? Like, we just met a couple hours ago. You just broke up with someone. We could hang out first or whatever.”  
She rolled her eyes. In an attempt at bravado, she scoffed, “It doesn’t have to be a huge deal, you know. It’s not like it’s my first time or something. We’re single. We’re in college. My roommate is gone. We can do what we feel like. And it…” her voice softened a little. “It feels right.” A thought crossed her mind and she wondered if she had just been insensitive as all hell. “Wait, is… is it yours? Your first time, I mean?”  
He looked away, seeming kind of embarrassed. “Uh… no.” She gave him a curious, flirtatious look. She had just bared her soul to him about her breakup, and she was damned if she wasn’t going to get him to tell her something personal too.  
“Someone back home?”  
“No, I uh, I never dated anyone in high school. It wasn’t… really serious. I met this girl at the freshman visit. It was… I don’t know, it was fun, but once we spent thirty minutes together the next day it was pretty clear that we didn’t get along. We haven’t talked since.” She giggled at the thought of such a casual connection, then more when she realized that this was not too different.  
“Okay, then, see? Nobody’s first time. Not a huge deal,” she teased, and ruffled his hair, and he started laughing too. Then he wrapped his arms around her, his hands moving up her back, pulling her into another intense kiss, this one more confident. He rocked his hips upwards, and she could feel his growing erection pressing against her, sending all kinds of fire through her. She moaned and deepened the kiss, reaching under his shirt to run her hands over his hard abs. “Damn,” she murmered. “Thanks,” he returned. “It’s from, uh, swimming.” She pulled his shirt over his head, then gave him a devilish look and unzipped her dress at the side, pulling it up and over her head too. She couldn’t believe her luck that she had her nicest bra on today, lacy and black, and cute panties too, red with black lace on the edges. Wearing nice lingerie had felt like such a waste lately.  
“Damn,” he uttered faintly. She smirked, feeling his dick swell at the sight of her.

Zuko watched in disbelief as the girl he had just met earlier that night, the girl whose room he had actually in fact come to to ask her to be quiet, the girl who he had seen only two weeks ago smiling dutifully into her Skype call in the lounge, undid her braid and let her uncontrollable curly hair spill out. She looked like some sort of mermaid goddess. He cupped her breasts over the bra and leaned in to kiss her neck and shoulders where the hair so tantalizingly brushed them. They ground their hips together through his jeans and her underwear. He felt her fumbling with his button. She broke the kiss to see what she was doing and finally got it open. If he wasn’t imagining things, it seemed like she slowed down slightly, staring at his crotch as she unzipped his pants and moved his underwear out of the way. He sighed with relief as his swollen cock sprang free, then shuddered when she grasped it, running her hand up and down, lightly at first, then with zeal. His face was level with her tits, and they were amazing. The way her bra was pressing them together made him desperate to see more, so he finally gathered his wits enough to unhook her bra. She stood up and he groaned when she stopped touching him, then saw that she was tossing her bra to the floor and, better yet, bending over to pull her panties down, displaying the lovely curve of her ass. He struggled out of his pants as fast as he could.  
Then she was kneeling, kneeling!, right between his legs. “Here, sit up,” she commanded. “Huh?” He gasped. “Just trust me. Sit up,” she ordered, so he did. With a shock, he saw that she was touching her own tits, pressing them together, then rubbing up against his hard dick. He stared as her soft brown skin enveloped his pulsing red erection. He had to look away, it was too much. Then she was licking him up and down, taking him in her mouth, into her throat, even. He was amazed how far she swallowed him down her throat before she gagged just a little. She pulled away, giggling, and only then did he notice that she had been touching herself the whole time.  
When he saw her like that, smiling, meeting his eye, spit and precum smeared on her chin, fingers wet with her own juices, he could not take it for one more fucking second. He dropped down to the floor, took her shoulders and laid her down on her back. He could hear her breathing speed up with anticipation. She seemed excited by the slight forcefulness of it. Positioning himself over her entrance, he stopped suddenly, his brain kicking into gear. “Uh. You on birth control?” he asked.  
“Yep, You been tested?” She replied.  
“Yeah.”  
“Sweet, me too. Go for it.” He pushed slowly into her, all the way to the hilt, savoring her moan. He felt slightly bad, once he thought about it, for fucking her on the floor—it was pretty hard, and it couldn’t be that comfortable to lie on—but she looked goddamned ecstatic so it seemed like it must be fine. He started to thrust faster and her hips rolled in time with his. He was kissing her neck, nuzzling her earlobe, when he heard a small voice.  
“Zuko?” He pulled back and looked her in the eye. She was blushing. The look on her face was so… vulnerable. “Would you um… can you hold me down? Like… my wrists?” He nodded slowly, suddenly nervous. He took each one of her arms by the wrist and pulled them up over her head, planting his hands firmly over them. She groaned and her eyes closed. Zuko could not say that he felt super comfortable with how good this felt. He began to thrust rapidly again, noticing how her moans got louder and louder the more he pressed her wrists down on the hard floor.  
He finally could not hold back anymore. Pounding a few last emphatic times, he spilled everything into her, shivering with the force of his orgasm. She keened as the moisture surged through her. Then she pushed him gently off of her, whimpering the whole time, took his hand, and moved it to her swollen, dripping, cum-soaked cunt. He pressed his finger onto her clit, rubbing it once, twice, three times, and then she was arching gloriously into his hand, bucking her hips and closing her eyes tight. They lay there on the floor, sticky with each other’s juices, staring at each other as their breath gradually evened out. She finally climbed back onto the bed and pulled him up with her. Neither of them even said anything. She snuggled under his arm and lay her head on his chest. He wrapped his arms around her. That was the only way for the two of them to fit comfortably on her narrow bed anyway. They fell asleep like that.

The next morning, Katara awoke to a damn fine fellow in her bed. She laughed to herself, recalling her uncharacteristic boldness. This single college life thing was actually pretty great. She turned onto her other side and he sleepily moved to spoon her.  
Then a completely unwelcome sound make her stiffen: a key in the door.  
“Shit! Zuko, wake up! My roommate is back!” He jumped awake at that.  
“What? I thought you said she was gone all weekend!”  
“She was supposed to be!” Katara whispered, jumping out of bed and pulling her dress on quickly, without putting her underwear back on. Zuko pulled the sheet up over his naked self, looking around for his underwear, but before he could find it, the door opened. Mai stood in the doorway, looking first at Katara, then at the half-empty whiskey bottle on her desk, then at the mess of clothes on the floor.  
“Wow, sorry,” she snapped, “I decided to come back early because my mom was being annoying. I didn’t realized you needed the room.” Then her eyes finally landed on the man in Katara’s bed, and narrowed. “Zuko?”  
Zuko turned red as a tomato from his messy bangs all the way down to his bare upper chest. “Oh, fuck. Uh. Hi, Mai. Nice to see you again.”


	2. Tuesday/Thursday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katara wants to be a good friend and roommate to Mai, but she can't stop thinking about Zuko. Time for some delicious sneaking around!

Once again, Katara was staring at her phone. But today it was not with annoyance or guilt. Today it was with anxious anticipation. She tried to look vaguely busy at her laptop, switching idly between tabs. The phone buzzed. A message from someone her contacts list knew as Cinnamon appeared on the lock screen. “How about now?”

Katara listened briefly. It sounded like Mai was still blow-drying her hair. Usually she was out the door by around 10:23 for her 10:30 class, but she seemed to be cutting it extra close today. “Not yet, she’s drying her hair,” she texted back. “Probably like three minutes?”

Mai’s hair dryer stopped. A minute later, she walked into their room, looking flustered. She picked up her tote bag from her desk and turned to Katara, who was still casually switching between tabs. “I have to head out now,” she said, “But uh, Stranger Things tonight?” Katara looked up, smiling in spite of her impatience. Mai really had been making an effort lately.

“Sure! Yeah, I’m planning on it.” Mai smiled timidly and left. When the door clicked shut, Katara counted to thirty. She unlocked her phone, feeling a slight twinge of guilt. In the weeks since Katara had accidentally hooked up with Mai’s former hookup and Mai caught the two of them hungover and sloppy in Katara’s bed, they had both been trying a little harder to be roommates to each other. Neither of them could figure out who should be more embarrassed, Katara for having an unplanned overnight guest in their room or Mai for coming back sooner than she said she would, and neither of them could exactly judge the other for indulging in a fleeting connection with a certain moody, intense, hella-handsome-once-you-really-looked dude. It certainly wasn’t either of their faults that they had ended up living in the same dorm as said dude. If anything, the unfortunate situation was a consequence of their distant relationship—if they were a bit closer, Mai probably would have mentioned Zuko-of-the-freshman-visit before then—and it broke the ice enough to make them both want to mend their relationship.

Except, well, while Mai was making plans for roommate-bonding tv-watching time, Katara was waiting for her to go to class so she could text someone implausibly named Cinnamon to come on up. She flinched just a little when she hit send on a message that just read “Now.” She might feel like trash for sneaking around behind Mai’s back, but there was just no contest between her guilt and her lust. It would be worth it, she knew, it always was.

***

As soon as Zuko got the text, he sprang up and grabbed his laptop bag, which he had packed earlier that morning, knowing that he would need to go straight from Katara’s room to class. He told his roommate that he was going to stop by the library before class—there was no real reason to lie, or even to think that his roommate kept any track of when he normally left and returned, but it seemed like a good precaution—and left. He took the stairs up. It was faster than waiting for the elevator.

Slightly winded from sprinting up the stairs and down the hall, he tapped on her door. Sort of quietly, not wanting to draw any attention to it. Katara had made it very clear that if they were going to keep doing this, word could not get out, especially among the people in their building. It was only a few seconds before the door opened. She practically dragged him inside, slamming him into the door as it closed and kissing him hungrily. He shuddered at the feeling of her lips and teeth crashing into his, the wet heat of her tongue entering his mouth. He moaned and wrapped his arms around her, grabbing both of her round, firm ass cheeks and pulling her hips towards himself so he could grind his cock, already straining at his jeans, up against her. She broke the kiss, inhaling deeply, and their eyes met for the first time since he arrived. He smirked a bit, and she giggled. It was reassuring to see that he was not the only one who had been bursting at the seams all morning. 

“I don’t have a lot of time,” she whispered, half-apologetic, half-sultry.

“I know,” he replied. “You have class at eleven. So do I. So let’s get on with it.” He squeezed her ass again, then lifted her up by the thighs so that her legs wrapped around his waist. She clung to his neck, kissing and nibbling at his ear lobe, while he maneuvered her over to the bed. He tossed her down somewhat unceremoniously, just so that he could see her, flushed and unkempt, legs splayed out, skirt riding up to show her plain black underwear. He towered over her, taking a moment to savor the scene, and chuckled when she pouted impatiently. 

“I thought you said we were going to get on with it?” she grumbled.

“You’re right,” he said. “Let’s see… how can we make this quicker?”

He rolled her roughly over onto her front, eliciting a small gasp from her. Now she was face-down on the bed, her legs hanging down to the floor, her ass perfectly positioned at the edge. He lifted her skirt and pulled her panties down, leaving them around her ankles. “Not enough time to get naked, right?” he murmured, unzipping his pants to free his throbbing erection. He rubbed it up against her ass, savoring the smooth feeling of skin to skin. She whimpered inarticulately. 

He reached down with his left hand and cupped her breasts. In a weird way, it seemed dirtier to feel her up through all these layers of clothing than when they were naked. With his right hand, he reached around and found her slit, running his fingers up and down, feeling how swollen her clit was, how slick her entrance. 

“Gosh,” he whispered, leaning down to breathe hot on her neck, “seems like you’re already ready. You haven’t been, I don’t know, thinking about this all morning, have you?” She groaned. He pushed his cock between her legs, rubbing against her wet folds to pick up a little lubrication, then thrust into her cunt all at once. She groaned again, louder this time. “Shhhhhhh,” he crooned, placing his hand over her mouth until she got ahold of herself. “You wanted this to stay a secret, remember? Can’t have the neighbors hearing you getting fucked.”

***

Katara was having a hard time squaring all of the sensations she was experiencing. The bedspread, rough on her cheek. Her hair, sticking to her neck and forehead with sweat. The underwire of her bra, digging into her soft skin as Zuko fingered her suddenly-super-sensitive nipples. Every fucking seam and crease of her clothing, clinging to her like tropical humidity. The cock that filled and stretched her. The jolt that ran through her every time Zuko’s hips pounded into her. The occasional scratching of his zipper grazing against her ass. It had never really occurred to Katara to leave her clothes on during sex. She enjoyed being naked with someone else, and why not be as comfortable as possible? And if someone had described it to her like this, all the sweat and various discomforts, it wouldn’t have appealed to her. But—since it was necessary—here she was, wondering how all of these discomforts could add up to something so criminally hot. 

Maybe it was just that it forced her to think about what she was doing. This wasn’t “fun” anymore, not a casual Friday-night hookup. Whatever was going on between them, they both craved it enough to lie for it, to take risks for it, to show up at their Tuesday/Thursday morning classes looking like sweaty, postcoital messes for it. They craved it enough to do it as often as they could find an empty room to fuck in, even when there wasn’t enough time, even when they had to rush it and do something that felt less like two young people mutually exploring their budding sexuality and more like an uncouth exchange in a dark alley. Even then, and especially then.

She worked one hand under herself, squirming to find her way under her skirt to her center. She pressed down, rubbing back and forth, and relished how she could feel his dick moving inside her. When she pressed harder, enough that he could feel the pressure, he growled indistinctly and increased his pace. She turned her head back a little, enough to watch him behind her. He loomed over her, lean, powerful, eyes glazed, firmly gripping her hips in place while he slammed into her over and over. 

Between the sight of him, still mostly clothed, having his way with her, and her own secretive efforts, tension was beginning to build in her whole body. Zuko dug his nails into her hips, and she clenched her eyes shut as tight as she could, trying to shut out every other sense and absorb the shockwave that swept through her body, a wave that was drawn out almost beyond the point of comfort by his continuous, insistent thrusting. Finally, with a low groan, he broke, and grabbed her hips so hard she thought it might actually bruise, and released his hot semen inside her. The sudden heat and moisture somehow amplified the tail-end of her orgasm, and she shuddered with satisfaction. He collapsed on her back, still inside her, and she relished the sticky heat of his breath on the back of her neck.

***

They stayed there for a minute, savoring the feeling of afterglow. Finally, he slid out of her, causing both of them to groan again. Katara didn’t look like she was ready to move—she was still almost trembling. “Could you, uh, on the nightstand,” she breathed, and he, already growing accustomed to this routine, grabbed the tissue box on her nightstand and handed it to her. She rolled reluctantly onto her back and cleaned herself up. He took one and did the same. 

They pieced their clothing back together, chatting easily. They were keeping this discreet, but that didn’t stop them from texting nonstop, Cinnamon to Whiskey and Whiskey to Cinnamon. They had gotten to know each other pretty well already. She handed him a comb so he could fix his hair, he helped her straighten her skirt. He asked how things were going with Mai—pretty good, they were going to do a tv thing that night—and she asked if he had talked to his dad since he declared his major—he had, and it wasn’t great, but at least it didn’t turn into a confrontation. She braided her hair. They looked each other up and down, smoothing wrinkles here and there, then checked the time.

“Oh! It’s only 10:49,” Katara exclaimed. “We don’t really have to leave for, what, five minutes? Fuck, we could have done more…” She sighed, and they both chuckled, equally exhausted and satisfied. 

Surprised at this unaccustomed opportunity, Zuko had an idea. “Well, since we have a little extra time, do you… do you want to sing me a song?” She smiled and blushed, always pleased to no end for someone to give her a reason to sing. As she got her guitar out, he added, “I don’t think I’ve heard you practicing in a while. I miss it.” She smiled warmly at the compliment, but sighed.

“Yeah, I haven’t actually gotten to practice much lately,” she admitted. “Since Mai doesn’t like the noise, I used to practice when she was out. And lately…” Zuko got her meaning: lately, any time Mai wasn’t in the room, they were immediately fucking each other senseless, usually for as much time as was available. He frowned. Not that she wasn’t an equal participant or instigator in all the fucking, but he didn’t like the idea that their… whatever, fling, relationship, whatever, okay?... was stopping her from doing something she loved so much. The very thing that had drawn him to her in the first place, he reminded himself. 

“I’m sorry,” he blurted, “I didn’t think about that. It’s… if you want a place to practice, you could come to my room! My roommate’s usually out, and I certainly wouldn’t mind. Your music is really relaxing to study to,” and he blushed a little at the implication. It still felt a little weird to him, the fact that he had listened to her singing and imagined who she might be for so long before he met her. And, well. The fact that now he was sleeping with the melodious voice from upstairs. 

She looked regretful, told him it was a wonderful offer, but if Mai was here, she would certainly hear Katara singing from Zuko’s room, and then she would really have a reason to be suspicious. He realized that she was right, let it go. She played him a new song she was working on. It was about a girl finding out she was a witch and learning to use her magic powers. The lyrics were charming, the story simple and evocative. The words were innocuous enough, but the way she sang it to him, the way she looked at him with mischief and confidence in her eyes made him wonder if she had something else in mind when she wrote it. 

It was time, and they left for class, him going ahead of her by thirty seconds, of course. As he walked to class, he hummed the new song about the witch, thinking smugly of the magic powers she seemed to have learned to use in the short time that he had known her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Had a blast writing this and basically reliving things I should have done in college, lol.


End file.
